The Republicans are going bonkers over Larry Craig: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1907866/posts?page=8

"...blackbird hidden in the flue..." is an elegant metaphor for racism kept where it can be disguised as something else. If it is a blackbird, nobody will call it that where the soot can be used as the excuse. If anything, Mellencamp's lyrics are too intelligent for a popular song. I think the guy is great.

[...] Check it out! While looking through the blogosphere we stumbled on an interesting post today.Here’s a quick excerptJohn Amato’s virtual online magazineOK, It’s a blog! By: Howie Klein on Sunday, October 7th, 2007 at 8:04 PM - PDT Ask the average person which John Mellencamp song is their favorite and chances are you’ll hear … [...]

Johnny Cougar has always been underrated ... Syd's favorite Mellencamp track? Easy .. Minutes to Memories off the Scarecrow album - a great song

on Scarecrow - you have Small Town, Minutes to Memories and Lonely Ol'Night right after each other

hard-pressed to find a better three song combination on any album

Let's Go HOOSIERS!!!

Here's another video that Mellencamps guitar player. Andy York plays on. Andy also produces this track. It is called "When the World Was Round" by Ian Hunter the video was release just two weeks ago. It is from Hunters excellent new CD "Shrunken Heads" on Yeproc Records http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki620ZxtlMU

OH man the new john fogerty album kicks ass-revival. should definantly be featured here.

http://www.videosift.com/video/John-Fogerty-on-Letterman-I-Cant-Take-it-...

99 @ 4:

"...blackbird hidden in the flue..." is an elegant metaphor for racism kept where it can be disguised as something else. If it is a blackbird, nobody will call it that where the soot can be used as the excuse. If anything, Mellencamp's lyrics are too intelligent for a popular song. I think the guy is great.

Except that it's referring to keeping a blackbird hidden in a flue. That's just strange, was my point. I appreciate your response and feel it necessary to provide more evidence (see below).

Don't get me wrong, he seems like a really nice guy, I'm just unimpressed. And his website has the Jena song on the front page with an explanation and a mention that it will be available on his next album. Seems a tad like a publicity ploy to me. If, like James McMurtry's "We Can't Make It Here Anymore" before the '04 election, he had offered this as a free download to get the word out, I'd be less suspicious. (Didn't his last anthem, "Our Country" get used for a Chevy commercial?) Anyway, I love Jackie Brown and other songs, this one just rubbed me the wrong way.

As for my evidence, "The Americans" from his last album: (warning, might be painful to those allergic to hoakiness)

I like my heroes
To be honest and strong
I wear t-shirts
And blue jeans
I try to understand
All the cultures of this world
I'm an American from the Midwest

When I speak
I have a southern drawl
I mind my manners most of the time
When you come down here
Stop and stay hello
I'm an American from south of the Mason Dixon line

I'm an American, I'm an American
I respect you and your point of view
I'm an American, I'm an American
And I wish you good luck with whatever you do

Heck, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWXMDyKsNX8&NR=1 today's his birthday....

He did a great version of Van the man's Wild Night
RHCP at Hullaballooo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBA1e1x_RIg&mode=related&search=

The Disco Boys covering Flash and the Pan: Hey St. Peter -

http://youtube.com/watch?v=IPFdmQB-BrY

Probably my favorite Red Hots tune, DG ... thanX!

John Mellencamp - Love And Happiness

Matt @ 16:

99 @ 4:

"...blackbird hidden in the flue..." is an elegant metaphor for racism kept where it can be disguised as something else. If it is a blackbird, nobody will call it that where the soot can be used as the excuse. If anything, Mellencamp's lyrics are too intelligent for a popular song. I think the guy is great.

Except that it's referring to keeping a blackbird hidden in a flue. That's just strange, was my point. I appreciate your response and feel it necessary to provide more evidence (see below).

Don't get me wrong, he seems like a really nice guy, I'm just unimpressed. And his website has the Jena song on the front page with an explanation and a mention that it will be available on his next album. Seems a tad like a publicity ploy to me. If, like James McMurtry's "We Can't Make It Here Anymore" before the '04 election, he had offered this as a free download to get the word out, I'd be less suspicious. (Didn't his last anthem, "Our Country" get used for a Chevy commercial?) Anyway, I love Jackie Brown and other songs, this one just rubbed me the wrong way.

As for my evidence, "The Americans" from his last album: (warning, might be painful to those allergic to hoakiness)

I like my heroes
To be honest and strong
I wear t-shirts
And blue jeans
I try to understand
All the cultures of this world
I'm an American from the Midwest

When I speak
I have a southern drawl
I mind my manners most of the time
When you come down here
Stop and stay hello
I'm an American from south of the Mason Dixon line

I'm an American, I'm an American
I respect you and your point of view
I'm an American, I'm an American
And I wish you good luck with whatever you do

What's hoaky about that? I don't love every song he makes, but he's alright in my book. Here he is on Charlie Rose:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hSNFVexGDQk

Here's more:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=PYYagVaWZT4

RayFerd @ 26:

John Mellencamp - Love And Happiness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjUkKVDfB4Y my thoughts exactly

Always thought his album "Big Daddy" was highly underrated. Jena in my opinion isn't a great song for him, but oh does it hit the nail on the head, for those in south whose views are so "old fashioned" shall we say.

peaceful easy feeling @ 33:

I’m an American, I’m an American
I respect you and your point of view

Sounds like good advice for quite a few people in the blogosphere to take heed of.

it's one thing to respect someone and their opinion......it's a completely different thing to tolerate insults and innuendo........and after long enough....it does get old.I wonder sometimes...will this nation ever become reunited?

CensoredFan....I understand what your saying....but I disagree....but as long as we have Coulter and Malkin and Morgan and the rest.....we don't stand a chance.

This nation was founded on segregation Mudshark. It will never be united, except financially.

Someone who is confusing segregation with our constitutionally-protected right to freedom of association would probably see it this way.

I'm old enough to remember when he was just John Cougar. But in this PC environment, with music sounding so stale & saying absolutely nothing, that was really refreshing. Imagine if every other song out there was this in your face.

mudshark @ 30:

RayFerd @ 26:

John Mellencamp - Love And Happiness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjUkKVDfB4Y my thoughts exactly

Thanks for fixing the link I tried to create.

-Ray-

I think it is a huge stretch to try to justify a pack of 6 people beating a completely unrelated person, who had nothing to do with noose-hanging, unconcious by saying it was caused by noose-hanging that happened A FULL THREE MONTHS before the beating.
Mychel Bell is no angel or "child" either. The reason he got tried as an adult in the first place (now overturned) is because he had 2 priors for assault. Black people in Jena actually complained that he should have been arrested long before the pack-beating because he was terrorizing his neighborhood and vandalizing black people's cars, and that he was overlooked because he was a popular football player, and it took him attacking a white person for the police to do anything about him.
The noose-hanging was in bad taste and offensive, but using violence 3 months later and trying to justify it by pointing back to the 3-month-old noose incident is much worse.
In my opinion Mellancamp "jumped the shark" with this one.

It would not have been an "all-white jury" if only some black people had actually responded to the jury summons:

http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/284511....
exerpt:
"Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes. Barker, luckily, sustained no life-threatening injuries and was released from the hospital three hours after the attack.

A black U.S. attorney, Don Washington, investigated the “Jena Six” case and concluded that the attack on Barker had absolutely nothing to do with the noose-hanging incident three months before. The nooses and two off-campus incidents were tied to Barker’s assault by people wanting to gain sympathy for the “Jena Six” in reaction to Walters’ extreme charges of attempted murder.

Much has been written about Bell’s trial, the six-person all-white jury that convicted him of aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery and the clueless public defender who called no witnesses and offered no defense. It is rarely mentioned that no black people responded to the jury summonses and that Bell’s public defender was black.

It’s almost never mentioned that Bell’s absentee father returned from Dallas and re-entered his son’s life only after Bell faced attempted-murder charges. At a bond hearing in August, Bell’s father and a parade of local ministers promised a judge that they would supervise Bell if he was released from prison.

Where were the promises and supervision before any of this?

It’s rarely mentioned that Bell was already on probation for assault when he was accused of participating in Barker’s attack. And it’s never mentioned that white people in the “racist” town of Jena provided Bell support and protected his football career long before Jesse, Al, Bell’s father and all the others took a sincere interest in Mychal Bell."

"Black-on-black" crime has killed more black people in the last 5 years than were killed by all the lynchings and KKK murders in the entire history of the USA. I am not defending lynchings or the KKK, they are disgusting, but neither am I blind to the huge problem of black male crime in the USA. Blacks make up only 12% of the US but they commit over 50% of all murders, most of the victims are black.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm

peaceful easy feeling @ 37:

mudshark @ 34:

peaceful easy feeling @ 33:

Sounds like good advice for quite a few people in the blogosphere to take heed of.

it's one thing to respect someone and their opinion......it's a completely different thing to tolerate insults and innuendo........and after long enough....it does get old.I wonder sometimes...will this nation ever become reunited?

And yet another thing completely to answer insults and innuendo with more of the same, ratcheting up the volume and vindictiveness, all the while justifying it because "people are angry." Until those running the left/right top blogs can start looking at their "enemies" as a MLK or Ghandi did, negativity and divisiveness in our country are only going to get worse.

I understand what YOU are saying as well....but should we not right the wrongs...should we just sit here and let them spew lies and distortions.As long as we do it in a non violent fashion we should call them out on their BS...I for one am sick and tired of it....Look what they've done.

Abe @ 51:

larrys6,
where in the world did I imply that "racism does not exist in America", as you accuse me of doing? Of course racism exists. In fact, all races can be racist!
Did you even look at the links I posted? For your question about stats, the link, once again, from the US Department of justice, is
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/race.htm
It is full of the very stats that you are wondering about.

For your question : "Who said that “Justin Barker, the white victim, was cold-cocked from behind, knocked unconscious and stomped by six black athletes”?"
The person who said [wrote] that is Jason Whitlock, a black man, found at his article, which I linked to, once again, here it is:
http://www.kansascity.com/sports/columnists/jason_whitlock/story/284511....

As far as the black crime rate goes, the point I was making is that it is a matter of proportionality. If all blacks, male and female, of all ages, make up only 12% of the US population, it stands to reason that "crime-age" black males make up LESS THAN 6% of the population.
Think about the solid, undisputible fact that less than 6% of the US population commits over 50% of all murders in the USA. It is time to stop blaming slavery and white racism as being the cause of the astronomical rate of black men killing each other or anyone.

Oh yes I read the links you posted. I am a little cynical of any stats that a Bush administration DOJ issues to the public, but let's say they are correct. Why do you think 6% of the population commit 50% of the murders? Even though I am at the disadvantage defending what is clearly wrong, I will only say it is rooted in hopelessness. Hopelessness caused by years of being denied equal rights of jobs, opportunities, education, justice, and being made to think you are inferior when you are not. Even with the DOJ stats the bulk of murders are drug related. This is what everybody knows... Someone, I won't imply who, brings drug into the country. They find someone who does not have meaningful employment, for some reason; that person is put into a world that is conducive to criminals and murderers. It is still that individuals fault, but is it his alone? What role does society have in it? If everything is equal, there would be equal employment and opportunity. If the playing field is level Minorities will succeed. Oh yes, work needs to be done to contend with the results of what racism has caused, but make no mistake about it, racism is the central factor. Since you admit racism does exist, what do you think the results are? Does the law of cause and effect not apply?

As for Jason Whitlock, I am aware of him and what he writes, he could be right but he wasn't there as I wasn't there. His word is doesn't carry any more weight than the individual that was there and said it happened the other way.

Abe @ 53:

larrys6,

I hate Bush, but the DOJ stats are from 1976 - 2006, so he did not have much to do with them.
OK, let's say Bush actually does bring all the drugs in the country, and that we understand that all the black murderers are hopeless because they have been denied jobs, opportiunities, etc (actually false, see below, but let's just say that's the way it is for now)... and that they commit all those murders because of "racism". Ok, what now? We "understand" that they have been forced by the racist white man to be murderers and rapists (the rate at which black men rape is even higher than the rate at which they murder)... we "understand" that racism has caused them to be criminals, ok, what do we do? Are we supposed to "give them a pass" and not punish them for their murders, assaults, and rapes, because they are black and therefore they have "had a hard time"????

As for Whitlock, he IS RIGHT about what happened in the court proceedings as far as no blacks responding to the jury summons. It does not matter if he was there or not. He is also RIGHT that nobody even mentioned the noose incident until AFTER Mychel Bell has been convicted of attempted murder (not an undeserved charge, the military teaches you to kick and stomp on someone's head and neck to kill them in unarmed combat). Whitlock's reporting of the court proceedings is FACTUAL and it does not matter that he was not there in Jena when a pack of 6 people beat 1 person into unconciousness.

As far as being "denied opportunities" , every college in the country is falling all over itself to admit black students who have scores that would disqualify asian, white, and latino students. Also, after college, law, medical, and engineering schools do the exact same thing, admit blacks who have low grades that would disqualify every other race. Corporations also have massive "diversity" departments that then hire these lower-scoring, less qualified graduates. There are myriad opportunities for blacks to roar ahead to success if they would simply stay out of trouble, study, and apply themselves. Unfortunately, many blacks are not taking advantage of these opportunities.

Mychel Bell and the Jena 6 were not "despised outcasts" in Jena, they were the most popular football players in a football-crazy town. They threw it all away because they engaged in violence. Mychel Bell was already on probation for 2 assaults, one in which he hit a 17-yr old girl in the face, (which did not keep him off the football field) at the time he engaged in the pack-beating. THAT is why he was charged as an adult with attempted murder, not an unwarranted charge as I wrote above.

I hope you are not simplifing my assesment of the high rate of murders (and you added rapes), in the Black community to only being racism. It is a more complicated problem that that. I am saying that racism is the root cause of most of our countries ills. Absolutely no one should get a pass for committing a crime, I never said that. At the same time, should one be punished to the maximum of the law simply because they are Black. Bell was not an adult when commited these crimes and just because he is a habitual criminal he still should have been charged as a minor. Obviously you have not been in very many fights, I have, the ones I was in you did whatever it took to win. Kicking and stomping were all ways involved.

I grew up Black in the South. I know first hand the weight of racism on your life. It would take much to long to name only a few events in my life and they bring back a lot of anger. My anger is not misdirected anger, it is the type that says "No More". I will not tolerate it in my life and I will speak up when I see it. As for you thinking "every college in the country is falling all over itself to admit black students who have scores that would disqualify asian, white, and latino students. Also, after college, law, medical, and engineering schools do the exact same thing, admit blacks who have low grades that would disqualify every other race. Corporations also have massive “diversity” departments that then hire these lower-scoring, less qualified graduates. There are myriad opportunities for blacks to roar ahead to success if they would simply stay out of trouble, study, and apply themselves. Unfortunately, many blacks are not taking advantage of these opportunities". I was a product of affirmitive action, not for admission to any school, they were strictly segregated when I graduated, but I was hired by a company to comply with the Federal Government's mandate. I was the only Black man there, and that was hell. I was more qualified than most of the White males that were there and still had to do more just to justify my position. I worked on that job for over 20 years. There were not very many days that I didn't hear the N word, no not to my face but behind my back and behind closed doors. You may think it could have been my personality or performance. You would be mistaken. I was praised for my performance and often requested personally to assist in major decisions for the company.

Hopelessness did not hinder me in life, I overcame. Everybody can't climb out of that pit of despair. I earlier said that I was at a disadvantage defending a reprehensible crime as the Jena 6 (if it was as you and Whitlock say), I wonder how you feel defending issue regarding the effects of racism. I would like to hear your views if somehow the roles where reversed in life. I would like to hear how you overcame so easy with no evidence of anger, frustration, pain, or even self hatred. At the same time do not mistake this as sorrow, because I love being Black, I would not ever want to come back as a White man. I would be afraid I would be the kind that can't see anything but the reflection of himself as he looks into a pool. He sometimes does not see the depths of what's really there. I guess he muddies the pool up with the way he thinks without regard to past circumstances. Of course I'm not accusing you of this, you see clearly, we both agree that Bush's murder rate is more than that of Black males!

It has been a pleasure sir. It is good that we can agree to disagree and do it in such a civil manner. I am honored to have had this discussion with you. The next time you see a Black male with baggy pants, gold teeth, and a scowl on his face....It won't be ME! lol